Where are the Gentlemen?

Are you like me, in that you lament the lack of good old fashioned manners now-a-days?

Gone is the reliance on Gentlemanly conduct in society and in business. It is now a pleasant surprise seeing a young man offer his seat to someone who probably needs it more, whereas it used to be a basic social expectation.

Now, I don’t want to sound like a stereo-typical retiree starting off the conversation with, “It was different when I was young…”, but it was! For the record, I am 40.

The benchmark for conduct seems to be set lower and lower with each generation and I wonder if this is due to schools, parents and other institutions holding much less sway over the youth of today than they did 20, 40, 60 years ago. Bad manners, which used to be stigmatised and strongly dealt with, now are often ignored, and as a result, tacitly accepted. What messages are we sending to those who are demonstrating those bad behaviours – particularly when there are no real repercussions and they get their own way?

For quite some time I have observed, with dismay, the eroding of upright behaviour, or what I think of as Gentlemanly conduct. I constantly see people pushing past each other to get through the door first, ignoring those in need, and generally going about their day to day existences with blinkers on.

The final straw for me was listening to my wife, who stands up all day in her retail job, tell me how able-bodied men on the afternoon train hustle for position so they can get a seat. They will then typically open their broadsheet newspaper and promptly ignore everyone else, even the elderly and also pregnant women. This caused me to reflect on whether it was worth trying to do a little something about it.

Last October I created a group called Today’s Gentleman. I did this initially on the professional networking site Linkedin.com. I was quite amazed at the interest this niche group received, gaining 100 members (from over 10 countries) in the first two weeks, and hitting 250 members within two months. I knew I must have hit a nerve of some sort to gain such strong interest in a group which seemed a little whimsy when I first created it. As I write this article the group has over 400 members in 26 countries and has a presence on Linkedin.com, Facebook.com, and in its own right on the web at todays-gentelman.com

I chose the name Today’s Gentleman as most are familiar with the concept of a “Gentleman” and we have certain expectations about their behaviour. I also feel that it is important for men to redefine themselves in modern society as there are not the predefined moulds there used to be in the age of the Gentleman of old. It is an attempt to redefine the Gentleman for contemporary society… Today’s Gentleman.

My concern also extends to the lack of quality Gentlemanly exemplars we currently see in society now. It is unfortunately the exception rather than the rule now-a-days to find a Gentleman in the crowds of high profile figures in society which include sporting stars, political figures, showbiz / media personalities, and reality TV stars. We don’t seem to charge our public figures with “Gentlemanly” conduct as much as we used to. It seems enough now for them to simply stay out of jail and rehab for us to accept them as a positive role-model… I think we can expect so much more!

I believe that the more Gentlemanly conduct we see in society the better that community functions and the more engaged the individuals within that community feel. It is amazing the difference it makes to someone when you practice random acts of kindness: helping someone who has a flat tyre; letting someone go ahead of you in the register line when they have only a few grocery items; helping someone to the car with their purchases. These acts repeated and reciprocated can change people’s day, they can change a community.

In an attempt to gain more public awareness for these issues and encourage these behaviours Today’s Gentleman has declared the 22nd of February as International Be a Gentleman Day. The Inaugural day will occur in 2011 and hopefully build in popularity in following years.